Lecture at Rossiya Segodnya: The Living History of the Russian Arctic

Alexander Kirilov, acting director of Russian Arctic National Park, has delivered a lecture entitled The Living History of the Russian Arctic at the Rossiya Segodnya press center.

The lecture was given ahead of The Arctic — The Facade of Russia, a lesson that all schools across the country will teach on May 19. A lot of university students attended the lecture.

Kirilov spoke about the history of Arctic research and local fauna, and showed footage of fragments of 18th-century vessels, explaining that boards that were used to build vessels at the time were fastened with juniper roots. The lecturer also described the outfit worn by Arctic explorers in the distant past.

Kirilov paid special attention to tourism. Every year Russian Arctic National Park draws from 900 to 1,300 tourists, the majority of whom come from China (24 percent of all visitors) and Germany (17 percent).

Не also brought the audience's attention to a mistake in a Wikipedia entry, which says that the Franz Josef Land Archipelago consists of 191 islands, whereas, according to scientists, there are only 182 islands.